


Lilies in Winter

by CallYourGirlfriend



Series: All The Light We Cannot See [1]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Depression, Smoking, Vignette, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24744340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallYourGirlfriend/pseuds/CallYourGirlfriend
Summary: “The flower of death in my hair while the choir boys sing ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’? What does your little bride say about you digging graves at your own wedding?”
Relationships: Grace Burgess/Tommy Shelby, Polly Gray & Tommy Shelby
Series: All The Light We Cannot See [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789294
Kudos: 20





	Lilies in Winter

**Author's Note:**

> This work is part of the series "All The Light We Cannot See," which uses canon to imagine what happens before, sometime in the middle or just after an episode leaves off. It's the light we do not see. It is also purposefully concise; written to fit exactly one Google Doc page.

**_En Media Res--3x1_ **

Tommy’s stood before the mirror in just his shorts when Polly storms into his room, pours herself three fingers of his whiskey and throws it back like it tastes better when you can’t taste it at all. 

She wipes her mouth, dark eyes settling on his reflection with a smirk. “Will you be attending your own wedding in the nude?” 

Tommy quickly does up his trousers, reaching for the stiff white shirt he had handmade in London. He sticks an arm through the sleeve, hoping it’s not so early he sweats through it.

“Shouldn’t you be with the women?” he grits. “Grace says--” 

_“Grace says.”_ Polly scoffs and pours another two fingers of whiskey. “I swear to you Thomas, that woman wields a pot of rouge the same way she does a revolver.”

Tommy takes the glass from Polly and finishes it in one swallow. “You’re me aunt. You’re going to be in the photos,” he sighs. “Grace will at least want a real lily in your hair.”

Polly looks amused. “The flower of death in my hair while the choir boys sing ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’? What does your little bride say about you digging graves at your own wedding?” 

Tommy turns back to the mirror and begins to do up his shirt. He fumbles the buttons and curses the winter chill for how his hands shake. “Grace appreciates a theme.” 

Polly laughs. “She’s gone stupid in her love then. Same as you.”

Tommy says nothing. The whiskey’s curdling in his stomach, but choking back sick or not, he has no defense. He didn’t have one yesterday or the day before that or the months before that. Not since Grace dared him to believe love hadn’t died alongside him, buried in Flanders’ mud. 

“Just get a bloody lily in your hair, eh?” 

In the mirror, Tom can see Polly frown. With her lips turned down, her reflection appears years older. Like Tommy imagines his mother would have looked had she lived to see this day. 

“For you, Tom, I’ll play nice,” Polly says. “But I won’t pretend this ends well.”

Not three months later when an assassin's bullet has made Tommy a widow, he’ll look at photos from his wedding, drunk with his gun in his hand, and see Grace beside him forever immortal. No one could have known that wouldn’t be true except, of course, for Polly, by his side in every picture, never with a fucking lily in her hair.


End file.
